Mashable

Selma, Alabama

Marcellus Buckley, a 22-year-old black activist from St. Louis, was marching past the historic Brown Chapel in Selma, Alabama, earlier this year, when a fellow protester pointed out a small memorial nearby, showing a photo of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black activist killed by police half a century ago.

Jackson's death sparked protests in 1965 with marchers deciding to walk from Brown Chapel, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, to the state capitol in Montgomery. But white police chased the protesters back into Selma, teargassing them and beating them with billy clubs.

Clouds of tear gas fill the air as state troopers break up a march in Selma, Ala., on what became known as "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965.

Associated Press

The brutal images from that day, now known as “Bloody Sunday,” helped fuel the civil rights movement, even as they shocked the American public.

Having gone to Selma to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Buckley ran back to snap a photo of the memorial. Not that Buckley needed reminding that half a century after an Alabama officer shot Jackson and left him for dead in a restaurant, American police are still killing black people.

Buckley protested in Ferguson, Missouri, alongside thousands of others after a police officer named Darren Wilson shot and killed a black teenager named Michael Brown in August, 2014.

Social media allowed for the movement to blow up the way it did

The struggle for Civil Rights in the 1960s played out on television and in newspapers and magazines. The Black Lives Matter movement, however, used the power of social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to drive their message.

“The powerful thing about this movement is that so many people have taken to social media to control the narrative — whether it be from tweets, Facebook statuses or pictures or Periscope,” said Kwame Rose, a Baltimore activist who achieved national fame when he confronted Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera over the channel's seemingly biased reporting on demonstrations there. Social media “allowed for the movement to blow up the way it did.”

The Black Lives Matter movement has achieved notable results already, making the issue part of the debate in the presidential election and forcing federal authorities to publicly count police killings, a first.

This is the story of a year when America was once more forced to confront racism and police brutality.

Diontre Moore, lights a candle during a rally in North Charleston, S.C. on April 10, 2015 protesting the police shooting of Walter Scott.

David Goldman/Associated Press

North Charleston, S.C.

The video was hard to look away from: A white officer guns down a black man on a sun-baked patch of grass, shooting him in the back as he is running away.

Captured by an eyewitness on his phone, the April 4, 2015 shooting of Walter Scott by officer Michael Slager offered hard-to-argue with proof of police brutality against black Americans, and quickly went viral as people shared their outrage over the killing.

We learned what we need to ask for

City officials quickly charged Slager with first-degree murder. But a group of activists were not ready for Mayor Keith Summey and others to dictate what needed to be done in the wake of Scott’s death.

“The collective intelligence of the movement more than prepared us,” Muhiyidin d’Baha, a leader of Black Lives Matter in Charleston, told Mashable. “We learned what we need to ask for.”

The following day, d’Baha walked into a city council meeting, backed by a silent group of protesters, and demanded a citizen review board that could put police officers on trial.

Muhiyidin D'Baha speaks at the North Charleston city council about the killing of Walter Scott.

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

He gave the city council a day to decide. But, he said, it soon became clear that Summey had little interest in meeting with protesters.

"We had a wonderful reform list," d’Baha said. "But the mayor went out in public and, you know, said our reforms are garbage."

So the protesters decided to change tactics. During November elections, they backed eight city council candidates – two of whom made it into office. But Summey was elected, too — for the seventh time. After his reelection, the mayor described the election as "nasty" and threatened "retribution in the future," a statement for which he later apologized.

Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore state's attorney, addresses reporters on May 1, 2015 in Baltimore. Mosby announced criminal charges against all six officers in the Freddie Gray case.

Alex Brandon/Associated Press

Baltimore

Baltimore was still in a state of emergency on the morning of May 1, when the city’s top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, got out in front of city hall to read the list of criminal charges against the six police officers allegedly involved in the death of Freddie Gray.

Gray, a 25-year-old black Baltimore resident, died on April 19 as a result of serious injuries sustained during a 45-minute unrestrained “rough ride” in the back of a police van on April 12.

Protesters flooded the streets in the days following Gray’s death, demanding answers. On April 27, the day of Gray’s funeral, students and police faced off outside Mondawmin Mall. Young Baltimore residents hurled rocks at helmet-clad officers, and the officers charged at the crowds.

Baltimore Police near a CVS pharmacy looted and burned April 27, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland.

By the next day, the city was under a state of emergency and a mandatory curfew. But that didn’t stop protesters from demonstrating, calling for police accountability.

“Nobody expected the amount of people that poured out into the streets to stay in the streets for how long they did,” said Kwame Rose, the Baltimore activist.

We ain’t looking for a seat at the table — we’re demanding we have our own table

Federal officials were already investigating the Baltimore Police Department over earlier allegations of police brutality. But the national attention over Gray’s death finally prompted a full civil rights investigation.

Local activists say the trial of the officers won’t be enough to solve the city’s deep problems. But at least there is a sense of validation – that brutality against black residents can no longer be hidden.

“This movement, in particular — it shows the determination of this generation and, in some senses, how radicalized this generation is,” Rose said. “We ain’t looking for a seat at the table, we’re demanding we have our own table.”

The sun rises behind the steeple of Emanuel AME Church, June 18, 2015, in Charleston, S.C.

David Goldman/Associated Press

Charleston, S.C.

The morning sun was just beginning to rise over downtown Charleston, South Carolina. But the line of people who had dressed in their Sunday Best to see the president on June 26 already snaked for miles along the road. Flowers and notes lay outside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

A week earlier, only 10 miles south of where Walter Scott’s life came to a violent end, a white supremacist named Dylann Roof killed nine black parishioners during Bible study inside a church that for centuries stood as a symbol of black freedom.

After the eulogy, the president began a rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’

President Barack Obama had come to eulogize Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a former church pastor and state senator murdered at the church.

“It would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again,” he said. “That’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society.”

After the eulogy, the President began a rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

The poignancy of the country’s first black president responding to a hate killing by singing “Amazing Grace” was followed two weeks later, when police removed the Confederate flag, which had flown on statehouse grounds in the state capital of Columbia since 1961.

The crowd was joyful as the symbol admired by Roof and other white supremacists was taken down.

“The flag didn’t pull the trigger,” Bakari Sellers, a former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, told Mashable. “But the flag did give this young man a banner under which to hang his bigotry.”

Sellers, who is black, felt the full weight of the historic moment.

“When I first got elected in 2006, one of the first bills I filed was to take the Confederate flag down,” he said. “That’s always been a goal. But, honestly, that’s never something I thought I would see.”

Brandi Holmes, of Houston, carries a protest sign as she protests in front of the Waller County Sheriff's Office and county jail, July 20, 2015, in Hempstead, Texas.

Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle via Associated Press

Waller County, Texas

What happened to Sandra Bland?

In police dash-cam video, taken three days before her death in July, a Texas Department of Public Safety officer pulls the 28-year-old Bland over for failing to signal a lane change. He asks her to put out a cigarette. When she questions why, he demands that she step out of the car. Minutes later, after threatening Bland with a stun gun, he slaps her wrists into handcuffs and throws her to the ground.

Bland died in her Texas jail cell three days later, in an apparent suicide. Her family, though, didn’t believe the cause of death – and neither did many others.

Activists and journalists examined video footage from outside her cell. They looked at her mugshot for clues and they questioned official versions of events as the hashtag #WhatHappenedToSandraBland went viral.

The story of Bland's arrest resonated with many activists because of the way she handled herself during the traffic stop, demanding that the officer treat her with dignity.

“What happened with Sandra Bland, and when her family came forward, was that a movement rallied behind them,” Opal Tometi, a co-founder of the organization Black Lives Matter, told Mashable. “And we’re going to continue to rally behind them, because we know that Sandra Bland’s life also mattered, and that Sandra Bland’s life also points to a system that continues to view black women as lesser than.”

Officers face off against protesters along West Florissant Avenue, Aug. 10, 2015, in Ferguson, Mo.

Jeff Roberson/Associated Press

Ferguson, Missouri

On the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death, police in Ferguson shot and critically wounded an 18-year-old black man named Tyrone Harris.

Lying face-down and bleeding in the middle of a road, images of Harris in the moments after the shooting were easy to connect to the images of Brown’s crumpled body lying in the street after he’d been killed.

Police stand near 18-year-old Tyrone Harris after an officer shot and wounded him on Aug. 9, 2015, in Ferguson, Missouri.

Associated Press/Jeff Roberson

Protests over police brutality had once more engulfed the city of Ferguson where protests originally began more than a year earlier.

“What has happened in the past year shows that you can pick up and leave but you can’t get away from these issues,” Patricia Bynes, a committeewoman in Ferguson, told Mashable in August.

“You can’t get away from the toxic relationship between the black community and police.”

A member of the black student protest group Concerned Student 1950 addresses a crowd at the University of Missouri.

Jeff Roberson/Associated Press

University of Missouri

It was about midday on Nov. 13 when about 100 student activists marched into the main administrative building at the University of Missouri, chanting and singing parts of Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.”

Inside an indoor auditorium, the group quieted as a young woman picked up a microphone on stage, asking: “Who feels powerful?”

The audience cheered. Earlier that week, they had forced the resignation of University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe who, they charged, had not taken appropriate action after a series of racist incidents on campus.

Jonathan Butler addresses a crowd following the announcement that University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe would resign, on Nov. 9, in Columbia, Missouri.

Associated Press/Jeff Roberson

The protests at Mizzou led to other protests at universities across the country. The dean of students at Claremont McKenna College resigned after she emailed a Latina student to say she would try to help students who “don’t fit our CMC mold.” Princeton University removed “master” from the title of those who lead the university’s six colleges. And Harvard Law School may replace the school’s shield, which comes from a slaveholding family that once funded the school.

We’ve been really creative in the many ways we’ve exerted pressure

“We see that our actions have unconsciously inspired everyone across the globe to fight back,” Marshall Allen, a 19-year-old black activist at Mizzou, told Mashable in November.

The university protests also showed that the movement isn't limited to fighting police brutality.

“None of us started this work thinking police violence was the only topic we needed to tackle,” said Brittany Packnett, a Ferguson activist who sits on a presidential task force on police reform.

“We’ve been really creative in the many ways we’ve exerted pressure on people" in power.

Jeremiah Ellison, center right, stands near police during a protest at the 4th Precinct building in Minneapolis, on Nov. 18, 2015.

Renee Jones Schneider/Star Tribune via Associated Press

Minneapolis

Photos from the Minneapolis protests in November echo pictures of the Ferguson protests more than a year previously: Police in military-style uniforms aim their weapons at unarmed men and women. The protests also shared a similar cause: On Nov. 15, a police officer shot and killed a black man.

Outside the police department’s 4th precinct, about a block from where Jamar Clark, 24, was fatally wounded, demonstrators soon built a camp in protest. Activists also shut down roads and highways and demanded to see any video of the shooting to determine if Clark had been handcuffed when he was shot.

“When we decided we were going to be here, people rallied around us,” Miski Noor, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Minneapolis, told Mashable.

Demonstrators camp outside the Minneapolis Police Department's 4th precinct station during a protest against the death of Jamar Clark, on Nov. 24, in Minneapolis.

Associated Press/Craig Lassig

A small group of people had been watching and filming the activists encamped outside the police precinct for days. On Nov. 23, one of them opened fire on activists, injuring five. Police arrested three white men and one Asian-American man in connection with the shootings.

“I wasn’t expecting us to get shot at, that’s for sure,” Noor said. “But that just lets you know the latent racism that’s embedded in Minnesota culture.”

Despite the movement's achievements, there is still much work to be done, agreed Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Michael Brown’s family.

“You gotta remember, when we came across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, it wasn’t the KKK and the rednecks beating the hell out of us – it was the police," Crump recalled. “And the police were allowed to do that because the powers that be said they were allowed to do it."

He paused.

“And so – 50 years later – you have to ask yourself: ‘Has that fundamental concept changed?’”

President Barack Obama walk across Edmund Pettus Bridge, March 7, 2015, in Selma, Alabama, alongside civil rights leaders, members of Congress and former President George W. Bush.

Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

“It took us almost six, seven months to convince people that this problem was all across the country and not just isolated to [Ferguson,] St. Louis,” said DeRay McKesson, who became a nationally known activist during last year’s protests in Ferguson, and co-founded Campaign Zero, a group dedicated to police reform across the country.

“I know that we won't undo 400 years of oppression in 14 months — that is not real,” he said in an interview with Mashable. “These problems have been around for a long time.”